Police: Gunman Holds Up Leesburg Store, Rapes Clerk

LEESBURG — A gunman held up two store clerks Saturday night, then tied them up and raped one of them before fleeing, police said.

The man walked into a business on Citrus Boulevard about 9 p.m., said Leesburg police Sgt. Earl Bean.

The clerks were working in a back room when they heard the front-door buzzer.

When one woman went out front, a man with a ski mask over his face pointed a handgun at the clerk and forced her into the back room, where he bound her hands and feet with duct tape, Bean said.

He forced the other clerk to go with him and ordered her to open the cash register. She did, and he emptied it.

He took the woman into the back room and raped her. The gunman tied her up with her clothing and fled.

Hours later, an Orange City woman was raped near the Whitehair Bridge. Police said the attacks are not related.

In the second incident, Lake County investigators arrested a Eustis man with an unusual tattoo that matched a victim's description.

A 29-year-old woman told investigators she was attacked at 2:50 a.m. Sunday by a man who gave her a ride from a sports bar, said Lake sheriff's Detective Mike Warchol.

The woman got into a light-colored AMC Concord with the man, who drove her from Johnny D's sports bar in Orange City across the Whitehair Bridge on County Road 44 where he raped her in the vehicle on the side of the road, she told police.